Bearded Dragon

There is no karmic buildup from actions alone. That is silly. Look at the effect within after an action then it will be obvious. Karma is not external to your own mind. True self, best self, good, bad. It's all just a waste of time to think about it. If you leave your muddy shoes on the door mat then they'll be in the way. If you leave your clean shoes on the door mat then they'll also be in the way. It's rather simple. That was metaphoric in case it wasn't obvious.

It's not supposed to feel like anything. You'll find it changes. Bruce Frantzis mentions that there are many ways to do it, and there are different types of MCO that are slightly different. He mentioned that you can suck energy like you're sucking a straw, or you can use a contraction at the tailbone, etc. Personally I like just feeling for an opening or relaxation. If you wait for it then it tends to just happen. In any case it's not easy to say how to do it because it depends on where you're at, and it will change as you progress.

I've felt things with my body like the feeling of 6 foot long arms, actual melting, energy surging out of my feet like rocket boots. It's not visualised but actually felt like it's really like that. I can only presume that the feeling of floating would occur with profound relaxation and a balanced up and down flow. I've heard it mentioned by people. Not in literature.

Sometimes the line you feel around the orbit is manufactured tension. Keep this in consideration. In my experience it works better when you don't feel anything other than a relaxation/expansion.

If I walked into a Dojo and a black belt was training like that I'd walk out. It's typical though. They can't get any power into their side kicks in UFC either. Martial arts are less hazardous to your longterm health if you learn to relax. Less impact on your body and things just work better. You connect your body mass into your strikes better and because your body is better connected you tend to absorb things more across your whole structure rather than a localised area. It doesn't really matter what style you do. Relaxation is king.

"IME the only thing you need is a fully relaxed body and an almost fully stopped mind." Yeah, basically. How could the energy not flow naturally and unimpeded unless there is a specific medical condition? Stuff like the MCO is "fake it until you make it" with most of the benefit in training intent rather than opening energy pathways. If you're relaxed properly then the MCO will naturally open.

How can you prove it by asking someone? No matter how highly regarded someone is, words are words. Honestly, I think the idea of reincarnation has no place in Taoism (or Buddhism or anything for that matter). It's all the same kind of fear-mongering that organised religions use to control their followers. There is no benefit in knowing anything about reincarnation other than to hook people in and control them into staying within the particular system.

Everything is already resolved in consciousness, so the "worked on" part is not really anything other than just being conscious of it. It's already ok and doesn't need to be let go of, but then it happens anyway when the part that says "It's not resolved" goes away.

Try this on for size... "this Tao is everything that will exist, could exist, or will never exist" The container is essence, taiji, the one, awareness. That is not the same as the Tao.

There's no issue, and it's probably a good thing until you're good enough to use proper internals so that you've at least got something to use in a combat situation. As long as it doesn't introduce gross tension, and as long as you don't get addicted to the feeling of strength (which may be detrimental when trying to use no strength with internals).

This is a Daoist forum. You could say that the difference between the two approaches is that one leads from the front and the other leads from behind. It seems most effective to approach from both sides. Your energy is turned on anyway so you might as well tweak the mental structure.

What made me laugh: I had a thought "I'm going to watch my thoughts" and then I realised that this was a thought pretending to be me. Quite funny at the time.

Nobody escapes physical death. What's the point in slowing it? There is only one thing that never changes and that is who we are. As you open up to that you tend to live a more fulfilled life. Here for a good time not a long time.

The situation the world is in is too much like a moving wheel that can't be stopped. It can only be spun faster. Gotta keep digging the technology hole!

Faith in karma? It's quite obvious that karmic energy is an accumulative bane within people. It's also quite obvious that the more this energy builds up the more detrimental it is to one's well-being. No need for faith when there is observation.

I feel black energy sometimes as well. It's the stagnant stuff. The particularly nasty stuff feels like a location with cracks coming out from it.

No because I can think of countless examples of this and it's never happened that way. Kicking your toe on something you don't know is there. That elevator prank with tvs on the floor where they made it look like the ground fell away (should fall through going by your logic). etc etc. There is so many deceptive things that already exist which doesn't work in the way your described. Your logic works in dreams though. Solid and non-solid walls depend on your faith in moving through them.

I wonder if you've tried matching the upward flow with downward flow. It's a bit of a tai chi idea I think, and everything really opens up a lot more than with just up or just down. Not particularly the microcosmic orbit but rather the central channel going both ways at once. You tend to feel like there's a connection right from the ground up between your legs to the top of your head. This opens up the other channels also.

I think the progression is like that from what I see, but I don't particularly feel what people describe as kundalini. I've had the energy raising thing going on for a while which I developed through my kung fu but I typically have to turn it on to get any noticeable effect. I'm also very conscious about letting everything melt away at the same time. That's the physicality of of. The main thing is as you describe with working on aspects of life. I had some really noticeable energetic activity at certain points, in particular when my heart opened up somewhat (I wouldn't go into chakras with that because it felt very normal). After that stabilised sufficiently I've been getting more activity in my head. It feels more fuzzy than anything. Not really a pressure unless I try to raise it too much which just creates tension. I tend to just let it naturally do what it wants these days. That place of open awareness is good for the head. If you let your brain rest in it then it tends to go quite soft. When I do it I feel like the bottom hemisphere drops away.

I wonder how your perspective overall would change if you saw it the other way around, that your body is in the spaciousness. You say that nothing feels like it should be added or removed. It's that way anyway, no matter what or how much you do. The internals of your body are always working away doing stuff that is way more complicated than what we can imagine. It's really not like nothing is happening with your body. It's just that it feels that way at the moment. The ego is going down kicking and screaming but just in a more subtle way that you aren't recognising. I think you're just a bit stuck. That's all. The emptiness is great if there truly is a flow to it. Without all that much mind I'm experiencing life way more now. You just have to really open to it then your capacity to act or not act is supercharged. It still is fair to say that I do less now, but that's because I see that a lot of the stuff I used to do had no heart in it. Many things feel like they aren't worth doing anymore. Just go with it. Accept every part of how things are. All of it. It's not going to take much for things to turn around by the sound of it.

Depends on your reason for meditating. If you're doing it for enlightenment then it's neither here nor there.

Hmmmm. Seems like an interesting guy. I think I'll read a bit more on this. Thanks.

Q1) I don't practice Daoism but I was drawn to it because the basic principles agreed with how I naturally was already. Q2) Not sure what other people classify it as but for me it's 2 steps. You're like muddy water. You let the mud separate and settle to the bottom. You at some point become self-realised and see yourself as the water. Then the 2nd step is to release the mud until just the water is left. The real internal alchemy is to do with the 2nd step. Q3) As I already mentioned I've already got a natural thing going where I don't really do too much and gradually become less fixed/rigid/tense/etc. I just see it as growing up because it feels not too much different. Q4) Never. You don't need to meditate to be a practicing Daoist (not that I am one anyway, although the truest Daoist probably wouldn't call himself Daoist either). Meditation is a waste of time for some people, beneficial for others, and a trap for those who are too scared to face the world directly. Q5) As you become less interested in outcomes (neither yin nor yang is a preference) you become more open. You become fluid like water and have the ability to easily adapt. You have an idea of who you are initially, but over many years you break that down and realise you are none of that and the only reason you are who you are is because you decided for it to be that way. Then you just decide to be nothing in particular and over time your body catches up to that idea. Enlightenment is a pointless thing to think about. You just stick to the process of opening up, so possibly a better word is Enlightening. A verb rather than a noun. It's a process that is set in motion rather than a goal. Of course there are those who report what I call "Fireworks" experiences, but even though the experiences may be beautiful they are still just experiences and experiences are not the main game.

If you want a guru maybe watch some of Mooji's videos on youtube. Otherwise just get out in the world and live life. Learn the difference between spiritual practices and spirituality. A musician isn't going to just learn theory their whole life. They need to, at some point, forget about it and start jamming. If I had to do scales for the rest of my life it would indeed be a sad existence. Life itself is a spiritual practice. An opening to life is an opening to the self. Meditation sometimes is reclusive in comparison. A closing. You might be able to do some cool shit with your energy or have all sorts of interesting visions, but all it is is entertainment. Nothing else. If you find that you're closing down rather than opening up then perhaps you're not doing proper spiritual practices, hmmm? Just putting it out there. Get out in the world, find something you are too scared to do, and then do it. You wouldn't believe how beneficial that is for releasing stuck energy. Most people have so many ordinary things that are blockages for them. Get them out of the way first by using ordinary methods. Then if you find there's nothing left then perhaps do some meditation. I have never really done any meditation other than maintaining subtle concentration on what Bankei calls The Unborn. This is my whole practice. It works really well. You don't get special powers (adding stuff), but the emptiness generated is quite profound (releasing stuff). The emptiness I talk about is a freedom to be or do whatever I want without anything bothering you.

Pretty much. Although. one still needs the foresight to notice blockages and put themselves in situations where no effort and technique can be applied in order to refine the self. Otherwise no effort/technique is an excuse to be lazy and withdrawn like some meditators who prefer to sit on their butt rather than face their issues.